A Commitment to Equity
Josh’s commitment to the fight for racial justice is very personal: for him, it begins at home when he contemplates the world that his two daughters (one Black, one biracial) will inherit. In America in 2022, the average Black family owns 1/10th the wealth of the average white family. We have made strides in legislating equal rights for all citizens, but those rights are regularly undermined by the racial biases and inequities that still exist in our system. The racial wealth gap remains a stain on our nation, and Josh supports a comprehensive set of policies to help reverse it. Josh is also committed to criminal justice reform to address the over-policing of poor and non-white neighborhoods, the school-to-prison pipeline, and disproportionate sentencing and use of force.
As your Congressman, Josh will prioritize:
- Providing zero- or low-interest federally backed home loans for homebuyers of color to counter the historical effects of redlining.
- Addressing underinvestment in historically non-white neighborhoods by providing grants to develop and rehabilitate existing homes, commercial property, and transit infrastructure, and passing the Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit to incentivize home buying for low- and moderate- income borrowers.
- Bringing multiple agencies together to address the national crisis of affordable housing.
- Reducing housing discrimination by addressing inequity in home appraisals and mortgage rates, and by aligning federal enforcement efforts with the provisions in the Fair Housing Act.
- Increasing the federally available capital for BIPOC entrepreneurs through the Small Business Administration.
- Developing programs in conjunction with the Department of Education to help prospective first-generation college students navigate applying and paying for college.
- Investing in HBCUs through direct granting programs, and by expanding Pell Grants for students attending HBCUs.
- Making community college free for everyone.
- Studying the federal decriminalization of marijuana, which has been demonstrated to reduce arrests and racial disparities in law enforcement on a state level.
- Instituting federal guidelines for “use of force”: Black and Latino men are 50 percent more likely than their white counterparts to be involved in forceful police interactions, and there’s currently no federal standard governing when and how officers should use such force.
- Requiring state agencies to collect, maintain, and report data on deaths in custody and all officer-involved shootings, both lethal and non-lethal.
- Increasing federal funding for community-based restorative justice programs.
- Expanding FOIA access to increase police accountability and transparency in law enforcement.
